


Scatter Cross the Course

by Lalalli



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 02:11:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13649265
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalalli/pseuds/Lalalli
Summary: Bellamy Blake grew up poor enough that hiring dog walkers always seemed like an unnecessary luxury. Walking dogs is supposed to be the fun part of dog ownership. He knows that not everyone has the schedule that allows them to walk dogs as often as they should, but to him, that’s a reason to not get a dog instead of hiring someone else to take care of it. It’s why he got a cat instead.So he’s especially flummoxed when his Octavia’s Christmas gift to him is a gift certificate for 30 hours of person-walking services.





	Scatter Cross the Course

**Author's Note:**

> A Facebook friend started a person-walking business, which means I 100% had to turn it into a fic.
> 
> The premise didn't really work for my usual fandom, so I decided to give this one a try, since I spent winter break binge-watching The 100.

* * *

Bellamy Blake grew up poor enough that hiring dog walkers always seemed like an unnecessary luxury. Walking dogs is supposed to be the fun part of dog ownership. He knows that not everyone has the schedule that allows them to walk dogs as often as they should, but to him, that’s a reason to not get a dog instead of hiring someone else to take care of it. It’s why he got a cat instead.

So he’s especially flummoxed when his Octavia’s Christmas gift to him is a gift certificate for 30 hours of _person_ -walking services.

“But...I can walk.” Bellamy turns the gift certificate over in his hands, seeing if there’s anything on the back that might hint at why Octavia thought he might want or need someone to walk him.

“Except you don’t walk,” Octavia points out.

“I literally walked from your kitchen to your living room five minutes ago.” It’s possible that one of Bellamy’s favorite ways to wind up Octavia is to be willfully obtuse.

“You’re supposed to walk at least 30 minutes a day if you want your knee to get better -”

“But it hurts!”

“And it’s not going to stop hurting until you strengthen it. And it wouldn’t be the worst thing for you to have companionship.” Octavia rises to her feet and brushes imaginary lint off her pants, her way of leaving conversations and lending finality to her words.

“Companionship?” Bellamy repeats incredulously. “What am I, an 85 year old widower in a nursing home? Are you going to get me a mail-order bride, too?”

“You moved here eight months ago -”

“Are you going to hire someone to do the crossword with me?”

“- and you still don’t have any friends.” Octavia shakes out a trash bag with a deft flick of her wrists.

Bellamy frowns. “I have friends.” He crosses his arms over his chest and flops backwards into the nest of throw pillows cluttering the love seat.

Octavia grabs wads of crumpled wrapping paper and loose ribbons, stuffing them into the trash bag. “Oh, really. Like who?”

“Like...like you. And Jack.”

Octavia pauses her cleaning to shoot Bellamy an unimpressed glare, one perfect eyebrow raised and lips set in a straight line. “Jack doesn’t count.”

“We hang out every Sunday.”

“You babysit him every Sunday. Because he’s five.” Octavia carries the trash bag to the kitchen.

Bellamy tilts his head back, looking up at the ceiling. “And it’s somehow preferable to hang out with a stranger who’s being paid to walk with me?

Octavia picks up a platter of cookies off the kitchen counter and holds it in front of Bellamy’s face. “Eat a cookie.”

Bellamy stares at Octavia. “Really? That’s all you have to say?”

Octavia lets out an exasperated sigh. “I don’t know what you expect me to say, Bell. It’s already paid for. Use it, don’t use it, I don’t care. It’s yours.”

Bellamy’s quiet for a long moment. “You care a little,” he points out.

Octavia just rolls her eyes and walks back into the kitchen.

The thing is, Bellamy’s never been one to let things go to waste, which is, again, a side effect of growing up poor. He washes out and re-uses his margarine and sour cream containers to store leftovers so he doesn’t have to buy Tupperware. He saves up carrot peels and the ends of celery stalks so that he can make his own vegetable broth.

So the thought of not using the gift certificate makes him itch. Like Octavia said, it’s already paid for. He might think it’s a waste of money to pay for person-walking services, but it would be an even bigger waste if he didn’t redeem it.

He’s supposed to meet some guy named Clarke after school on Wednesday outside the arboretum at the park. The knowledge of the appointment nags at him throughout the day, and he leaves school right after the bell rings just because it seems like he should just get it over with.

Most people assume Bellamy has a lot of friends because he tends to project confidence. He was the guy in college who would always take charge of group projects, establishing timelines and roles. He’s good at public speaking, a skill that carried over into his job as a high school history teacher.

But Octavia’s accusation rings true - he hasn’t made friends since he’s moved to California, and he’d like to, probably. He’s just wary of social situations. Especially social situations as forced and unnatural as getting a person-walker. He just doesn’t think he’d necessarily be friends with someone who chooses person-walker as a job. He imagines they’d be into meeting new people and fitness and like, avocados or something.

Bellamy knows his person-walker will be wearing a bright yellow company shirt, and he doesn’t realize that he’d mentally filled in the rest of Clarke’s physical details until he sees just how wrong he is. In his head, Clarke would be a youngish guy with brown hair pulled back into his ponytail. He’d be wearing fluorescent running shorts high enough to show off his enormous thigh muscles. He’d catch Bellamy’s eyes as soon as he approaches and wave hello with a grin too bright to be sincere.

Instead, the only person he sees wearing a bright yellow shirt is a woman about his age, blonde waves pulled back into a sensible braid, leaning back against a railing and scowling at her phone, her eyes darting up every few seconds to look around. Her eyes pass over him a few times, but move on quickly to the other people milling about before returning to her phone. Apparently, it’s up to Bellamy to make first contact.

He clears his throat. “Clarke?”

Clarke looks up from her phone and gives him a quick once-over before meeting his eyes. “I assume you’re Bellamy?” The scowl softens, but doesn’t completely leave her face.

“Yeah. That’s me.” He immediately regrets how inane he sounds.

“You’re late,” she informs him. She doesn’t sound upset, exactly. Just...wary.

Bellamy rubs the back of his neck. “Yeah, sorry about that. I had some students come after --” He trails off as Clarke turns and starts walking away from him, along the lily pond in front of the arboretum. He speed-walks to catch up to her.

“Sorry,” Clarke says, not sounding sorry at all. “I have another appointment after this. I assume you can make your excuses and walk at the same time?”

“Yeah, I can multitask.” He hesitates. “I, uh. The website said you usually let the client set the pace.”

He can’t be sure that Clarke speeds up on purpose, but it’s a distinct possibility. “Yeah. Is this too slow?”

“Too fast, actually. I have a bad knee.”

Clarke stops in her tracks, turning to face him. “Shit. Really?” Her eyes dart down to his legs, then back up to his face, scrutinizing him as though she thinks he might be lying.  
  
“Yeah. I, uh.” Bellamy gives her a self-deprecating smile. “My PT said I’m supposed to be walking more, and my sister thought this would help.”

Clarke bites her bottom lip. “I thought you were here because of the article.”

“What article?”

Clarke gestures for him to start walking again, so he does, setting a pace that’s only slightly faster than a meander. “We were featured in an article in the newspaper about New Year’s Resolutions and getting in shape and what not. And they mentioned the social aspect of our services, which some men took to mean that we’re also, like, a hook-up service.”

Bellamy raises his eyebrows. “Huh. That’s surprising.”

Clarke’s scowl returns. “Not really. Men can turn pretty much anything into a hook-up service.”

“No, not that part. Just...people still read the newspaper?”

Clarke barks out a laugh, loud and surprised.

Bellamy grins, inordinately pleased that he was able to make her laugh, and decides to keep going. “I just keep hearing all these things about how print is dead -”

“I’m pretty sure they published it online too, so print might still be dead.”

Bellamy snorts. “Don’t tell my sister. She’s majoring in journalism.”

As is to be expected, once Bellamy starts talking about Octavia, it’s hard to stop. Clarke probably only asks where she’s attending school to be polite, but Bellamy takes it as permission to launch into a series of stories about every single class Octavia is taking, how her roommate nice but her RA is kind of scary, about how she’s gone on a couple of dates with a boy in her biology lab even though she has a little bit of a crush on the TA. He tells her about how he kind-of-but-not-really followed Octavia to California because it was hard being far away from her, not going so far as to actually move to LA to be with her, but made sure he was in a city close by so that he could be there in a couple hours if she needed him.

They’re almost at the end of their walk when Bellamy is reminded that he still hasn’t asked Clarke the question that’s been lingering at the back of his mind since they left the arboretum. Bellamy has just finished telling Clarke that Octavia’s the one who gave him the gift certificate, and Clarke is asking him how often he’d like to redeem his hours, and it occurs to him - “Wait - what made you assume I was here because of the article anyways?”

Clarke’s pause is a little too long. “What?”

Bellamy suspects that she’s asking as a stalling tactic rather than out of genuine confusion, but he explains anyways. “Earlier. You said that you thought I was trying to use this as an opportunity to hook up. What made you think that?”

Clarke flushes a little. “I don’t know. You looked like the other guys.”

“In what way?” he presses.

Clarke waves her hand vaguely towards him. “You know. Youngish. Attra - uh - already in shape.”

Bellamy grins down at her. “So what was your plan? To scare me away with shitty customer service?”

Clarke laughs. “Are you saying it didn’t work?”

“Nah. You’re gonna have to try harder than that.”

*

“So how did you hurt your knee?” Clarke asks. It’s been about a month since their first walk, with Bellamy redeeming one hour a week. Since then, Clarke has taken the lead in deciding where they walk, suggesting dirt hiking trails that will be easier on his knee than concrete sidewalks.

Bellamy scowls. “I’m not telling you.”

“Why not?” Clarke presses.

Bellamy kicks at a pebble in front of him. “You’re going to laugh.”

Clarke’s face lights up. “I am?”

“You know, now is supposed to be the time that you promise that you won’t.”

Clarke hums in thought. “Yeah, but if you say I will, then it’s probably true. I’m kind of an asshole.”

Bellamy snorts. “Yeah, that’s true.”

Clarke steps closer to him to nudge her shoulder into his arm. “C’mon. Tell me.”

Bellamy looks down at the ground and mumbles, “ _Islinbanaeel_.”

“What?”

Bellamy huffs. “I slipped on a banana peel.”

As expected, Clarke breaks out into laughter, loud and delighted. “That’s even better than I was expecting.”

“Glad my pain amuses you.”

“I didn’t realize that people actually drop banana peels on sidewalks. I thought that was only in Mario Kart.” Clarke’s grin widens when she notices Bellamy cringe. “What is it? Oh my God, was Mario Kart involved?”

“So my co-workers and I might have dressed up as Mario Kart characters for the school’s Halloween festival. And -”

“Cars and everything?” Clarke interrupts.

“Cars and everything,” Bellamy confirms. “And -”

“Which one were you?”

“Toad. And -”

Clarke grins at him. “You were Toad? I bet you made an adorable Toad.”

He looks at her pointedly. “Are you going to let me finish the story or not?”

Clarke straightens, schooling her features into a serious expression. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“Anyways. We got a little too into it and held a race in the school halls. With banana peels and turtle shells and everything.”

“I’d accuse you of making this up to impress me, but it’s too ridiculous to be anything but true,” Clarke teases.

“You can’t invent this level of failure,” Bellamy agrees, choosing to ignore the implication that Clarke would be somehow impressed by Bellamy dressing up as Toad, running around in a cardboard box, slipping on a banana peel, and messing up his knee. Because if that does it for her, it’s possible that she might be the perfect girl, and he might be tempted to hit on her, and she’s already made it clear that’s the last thing she wants.

Still, though. Bellamy’s pretty sure that they’re getting to be friends. She emails him sometimes, forwarding information about stretches for his knee, which Bellamy would probably interpret as purely professional if the subject line wasn’t “Thought of you! :) “

So it’s a little distressing when the very next week, they spend latter half of their walk yelling at each other.

“Look,” Bellamy groans, “I’m not saying it’s bad - I’m just saying that if she wanted to have any sort of suspense, she shouldn’t have written it in the first person!”

“Whether or not she dies is beside the point! It’s about what she’s willing to do in order to survive!”

“But she has no moral ambiguity whatsoever! She only kills people in self-defense - or worse, by fucking accident!”

Clarke throws her arms up in the air. “And what about her staged romance with Peeta? Don’t you think that was morally ambiguous?”

“And that’s the other thing! She completely interrupts the momentum by shoehorning in a conflict that belongs in a made-for-tv romantic comedy!”

“That’s so sexist!”

Bellamy gapes at her. “How on earth is that sexist?”

Clarke gesticulates wildly, bending her fingers in air-quotes every five seconds. “Because you’re ‘saying’ that ‘conflicts’ that appear in ‘entertainment’ typically ‘targeted’ towards ‘women’ aren’t as ‘worthwhile’ or ‘meaningful’ as -”

“Oh, give me a break! That’s not what I mean and you know it!” They step into the parking lot, which is supposed to signify the end of their walk, but Clarke gives no sign of ending her rant.

“- completely dismissing it as a ‘romantic’ ‘comedy’ ‘aside’ instead of a legitimate means of survival!”

Bellamy stops walking and turns to glare at Clarke. “Regardless, Katniss being the narrator is still a problem.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “Oh, because it takes away the ‘suspense’ -”

“No, because Katniss is fucking boring!”

Another car drives into the parking lot, pulling into a spot a few feet from where Clarke and Bellamy are arguing. Clarke glances at the car before turning her attention back to Bellamy and hissing, “Your face is fucking boring!” Clarke turns on her heels. “I’ll see you next week!” she shouts angrily as she stomps towards her car.

“Not if I see you first!” Bellamy snaps, ducking into his own car and slamming the door.

The subject line of her next email is “For your fucking boring knee.”

*

It’s not very often that Bellamy uses his sick days, especially in the spring. State testing is approaching, and Bellamy wants to make sure that his kids are prepared. Plus, his kids have a tendency to terrorize substitute teachers, and he’d rather not return to his classroom with copious amounts of notes from the sub about how his class is the worst class they’ve ever taught.

But this flu season has been particularly nasty, and when he spends Tuesday night slumped against his toilet bowl because he’s tired of going back and forth between his bed and the bathroom, he finally gives in at four in the morning, submitting a sub request and texting Clarke that they need to reschedule his weekly walk.

He’s not worried that Clarke doesn’t respond right away. It’s still dark outside - she’s probably still asleep. He definitely doesn’t expect her to show up at eight with soup and orange juice and medicine.

“What are you doing here?” He’s not entirely sure she isn’t a product of fever-induced delirium.

Clarke pushes past him into his apartment, setting her bags down on his kitchen counter. “What are you doing up? You’re supposed to be in bed.”

“I’m answering the door. Obviously.”

She presses the back of her hand to his forehead. “Have you taken anything for your fever yet?”

“I’m guessing that sticking my head in the freezer doesn’t count.”

She doesn’t smile. “You haven’t taken any ibuprofen?” She pushes him lightly towards the sofa.

Bellamy obediently sits down on the middle cushion as Clarke rummages through the kitchen. “I took Tylenol a couple hours ago.”

Clarke appears in front of him with a glass of water and a couple of aspirins. “You need to take this too.” Once he’s taken the pills and drained his water, she takes the glass back to the kitchen to refill it.

Bellamy watches her, unable to shake his confusion. “Seriously, Clarke. Why are you here?”

“I had some time between appointments, so I thought I’d stop by. All your information is on file, so I was able to get your address.” She sets down a bowl of soup on the coffee table in front of him, along with another glass of water, and sits down next to him.

“That explains how you’re here, but it still doesn’t explain why.”

Clarke huffs impatiently. “Look, I have the job I do because I want to help people be healthier. So if you think about it, this is basically my job.” She can probably tell that Bellamy’s about to call bullshit, because she looks down at her hands in her lap. “And it sounded like you didn’t really have anyone else in town, so...yeah. Just looking out for you, I guess.”

Bellamy’s mouth suddenly goes dry. “Thanks.” He licks his lips. “Is this a reverse-psychology thing? Like, you couldn’t scare me away with shitty customer service, so you’re trying to scare me away with excellent customer service?”

Clarke snorts. “You caught me. I definitely can’t wait to get rid of you.”

Despite this assertion, she obviously wants to keep him alive. Before she leaves, she reminds him roughly 20 times to drink lots of fluids and take lots of naps and to not even think about touching the pile of essays waiting to be graded. Later in the afternoon, during their usual appointment, she returns to his apartment with Gatorade and Saltines and more soup. He lets her fuss over him for a couple minutes, then invites her to stay for the rest of the Doomsday episode he’s watching on the History Channel.

She listens to him rant about how the History Channel should be re-named the Conspiracy Theory Channel for 11 whole minutes before she makes a comment about the episode they’re watching that turns into an argument about which work of post-apocalyptic fiction has the most implausibly-structured dystopian society. (“Definitely Divergent,” Clarke says. “It’s like the only resource they had to rebuild their society was a thesaurus.”)

It’s a turning point of sorts. They switch from emailing to texting, building on the text Bellamy sent that morning, writing back and forth. Not often, not at first. At first, it’s just Bellamy telling Clarke he’s running late or Clarke asking Bellamy if he wants to try a new trail she found.

But then the school year ends and suddenly Bellamy has way too much free time on his hands.

 **Me** : Oh my God, the entire Divergent trilogy sucks. Why did you tell me to read it?

 **Clarke** : What the fuck, Bellamy. It’s 4:50 in the morning. Why are you awake.

 **Clarke** : Also: I explicitly told you NOT to read it because it would make you angry.

 **Me** : Yeah, which you knew would make me want to read it. Which I’ve been doing for the past 10 hours.

 **Clarke** : You seem to be under the assumption that I am constantly employing reverse psychology in all our interactions. Let me take this opportunity to clarify that I am not using reverse psychology on you.

 **Me** : That’s exactly what you would say if you were using reverse psychology

 **Clarke** : You’re right. You got me. On a related note: Please do not bring me a coffee. I have never needed coffee less in my life. I love my 5 AM appointments.

 **Me** : You did get the part where I’ve been up for the past 10 hours reading Divergent, right?

 **Clarke** : Yeah, you should definitely go straight to bed and get some sleep. That’s why I said that you should not bring me a double Americano. That is definitely not my favorite drink.

 **Me** : Don’t worry. I’m not on my way.

  
*

Bellamy doesn’t realize how much he looks forward to walking with Clarke every week until he gets to their meeting spot one day and someone else is there.

Finn Collins is everything Bellamy initially thought Clarke was going to be, but somehow worse by virtue of not being Clarke.

“Where’s Clarke?” Bellamy asks in response to Finn’s greeting.

Finn’s smile doesn’t even waver. “She had a scheduling conflict today, so I’m filling in.” He uses his head to nod towards the path to their right, his floppy hair swinging over his forehead. “C’mon - we’re going this way. How’s your day going?”

“Fine,” Bellamy says shortly, out of practice with small talk. He waits a little too long before begrudgingly asking, “Yours?”

“Oh, it’s going great!” Finn either somehow misses Bellamy’s lack of enthusiasm or is determined to have enough for the both of them. “I made avocado toast for breakfast, and my avocado was perfectly ripe. It just really sets you up for a great day when you start off with a perfect avocado, don’t you think?”

“I guess. I’m not really a fan of avocados, to be honest.”

Finn stares at him, mouth hanging open. “Seriously? You must not have had a perfectly ripe avocado before. It’s easy to go wrong with avocados. It needs to be just right in order to truly enjoy it.”

Bellamy resists the urge to cover his ears with his hands and groan as Finn prattles on about the best way to determine whether an avocado is ripe, proper avocado etiquette at grocery stores, and that time he made avocado ice cream, because avocados are eaten as dessert in Asia, but Bellamy must already know that since he’s Filipino? Right? Because Finn’s girlfriend is Latina and he has a client who’s Filipino, so he can tell the difference even though you guys kinda look the same. Oh, shit, he didn’t mean ‘you guys’, like ‘you guys’, like in that way because he’s not racist because his girlfriend is Latina and Raven did say he was supposed to stop saying that but like, how else is he supposed to say it? And by the way, how did Bellamy hurt his knee, because Finn hurt his knee before trying to parkour off a building into a dumpster and luckily it healed enough that he didn’t have to give up skateboarding, but his doctor did recommend giving up parkour, which was a shame because his YouTube channel was just starting to take off.

Once Bellamy’s back within the blessed silence of his car, he texts Clarke, _I promise I won’t mind if you just cancel or reschedule next time you have a scheduling conflict. Just don’t make me interact with Finn again._

Clarke doesn’t respond until he gets home. _Sorry about that. I would’ve, but it was super last minute, and company policy is that we need to give 24 hour notice, otherwise we send in a sub._

Bellamy’s still reading it when he gets another text from her. _But yeah, Finn’s definitely the worst. Sorry about that._

Bellamy stares at his phone for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out a way to schedule another walk without making it obvious that he’s only doing it to spend time with her. Walking with Clarke has somehow become the best part of his week - he doesn’t want to go through another one without seeing Clarke. Especially since each week has been dragging by ever since he started summer break.

He types, _I’m so bad at having free time. I’m honestly so bored. Think we can double up on our sessions during summer break?_ He immediately deletes it. If he doubles up, then he’ll go through his sessions more quickly, and the sooner he runs out of sessions, the sooner he’s going to have to figure out how he’s going to see her without the excuse of their weekly walks.

And the thing about being on break is, without school and teaching and grading to distract him, he is constantly thinking about Clarke and whether it would be crossing a boundary to invite her to hang out sometime.

He’d like to figure it out. Unfortunately, he usually talks to Clarke about this kind of stuff, and talking to her about this is definitely out of the question. So he goes to his only other friend.

“Do you think my relationship with my person-walker is more of therapist-client relationship or a coach-player relationship?”

Jack blinks at him. “Look what I can do!” he announces, and proceeds to make farting noises with his armpit.

Bellamy sighs. “Thanks, buddy. Real helpful.” Bellamy watches as Jack runs across the park to the swings, flapping his arms the whole way.

“Personally, I think of it as more of a bartender-customer relationship.”

Bellamy startles as Clarke plops down next to him on his park bench. “Hey!” His wide grin when he sees her is reflexive. “What are you doing here?”

Clarke looks pointedly down at her bright yellow shirt, then back up at him. “Just finished a walk.” She bites down on the corner of her mouth. “Do you really think of me as your therapist?”

Bellamy flushes. “Not really. But I vent to you a lot and you listen because I pay you to.”

“You had a gift certificate,” Clarke reminds him. “So technically, your sister’s paying me.”

Bellamy rolls his eyes. “Well, when you put it that way…”

Clarke nudges his shoulder with hers. “It’s not like you haven’t listened to me vent.”

It takes a moment for Bellamy to respond, as distracted as he is by the warm press of her arm against his. “Uh. Yeah,” he manages, barely intelligible.

She leaves not long after that, on her way to meet another client. That night, Bellamy caves and calls Octavia.

“Theoretically speaking, if I had a thing for my bartender and we really get along but she previously complained about customers hitting on her all the time, but we’ve been texting a lot, but only in the context of our bartender-customer relationship, I mean, it’s purely professional at this point, would it be okay to ask her out or would asking her out make it so that I can never buy drinks from her again?”

Octavia’s quiet for a long moment before finally asking, “What the fuck?”

“I feel like it was pretty clear. What exactly do you need me to elaborate on?”

“What do purely professional bartender-customer texts even look like?”

Bellamy scratches behind his ear. “Um. I guess, like, if I want to try a new drink, I guess? Or links to articles about how to, um...strengthen my liver? If I were to accidentally sprain it. Hypothetically.”

Octavia groans. “Is this about your thing for Clarke?”

“No!” Bellamy says automatically. “Why do you assume I have a thing for Clarke?” He pauses. “How do you even know who Clarke is?”

“Are you kidding me? For the past five months, it’s been _Clarke this, Clarke that_ -”

“That’s not exactly - and I was asking about a bartender and it’s all purely hypothetical -”

“Oh my God, yes, fine Bell. Hypothetically, you should ask out your hypothetical personal bartender and stop being a hypothetical human disaster.”

“Oh. Uh, by the way, O?”

“What is it?” Octavia sighs, exasperated.

“You know how my birthday is in three months? Do you think you could get me another gift certificate for -”

Octavia hangs up on him.

*

The week before his last walk with Clarke, Bellamy spends two days crunching numbers in his budget. He just heard from his principal that the school is no longer providing copy paper, which really puts him in a pickle because he also doesn’t have enough textbooks so he usually has to photocopy chapters to hand out to students, which might not be entirely legal, but he has to get the content to his students somehow, right?

So between that and his rising rent due to his neighborhood gentrifying and having to get a new used car because his old one finally gave out...it doesn’t leave much to pay for person-walking services for himself.

He barely talks during his whole walk with Clarke, spends it half-listening to her complain about Finn while spending most of his mental energy trying to figure out how he’s going to tell Clarke that they can’t go on any more walks together.

He hasn’t quite figured it out by the time they reach the parking lot, which makes it tough when Clarke looks at him expectantly, smiling brightly. “So.”

“So,” Bellamy echoes forlornly. He swallows, his mouth dry. “I can’t see you next week,” he admits.

“Oh.” Clarke pulls out her phone and scrolls through it, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “I’m free after 4:30 on Friday the week after or after 6 on Saturday.”

“No, I mean.” Bellamy rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed. “I can’t afford -”

“That’s totally fine!” Clarke talks over him. “I prefer low-key anyways. I can -”

“-to pay you.”

Clarke stops and frowns. “To pay me?”

“Yeah. To walk with me.”

“Oh.” Clarke looks down at her sneakers. “I guess I assumed that once you were done with your gift certificate, you would...I don’t know.” Clarke shrugs. “But if you want to keep walking, we can. You wouldn’t have to pay me or anything.”

Bellamy’s heart does a little flip in his chest. “You’d want to?”

Clarke smiles, though it’s not as bright as before. “Well, yeah. We’re friends, right?”

“Wait.” Bellamy frowns as Clarke’s words catch up to him. “You assumed that once I was done with my gift certificate, I would what?”

Clarke flushes. “Nothing.”

Bellamy mentally rewinds the past 60 seconds and replays it in slow-motion. “You thought I was going to ask you out,” he realizes.

“It’s not -” Clarke huffs and gives him a terse smile, already moving away from him. “Look, it doesn’t have to be a thing.” She turns to walk away. “I’ll text you, ok?”

Without thinking, Bellamy reaches out to grab Clarke’s hand and pulls her back to him, sliding his free hand into her hair and pressing his lips to hers. The kiss is brief, and surprises Bellamy as much as it surprises Clarke.

Bellamy licks his lips when he pulls away. “I, uh.” He smiles shyly at her. “I thought you didn’t want me to...um. But I’d like it to be. A thing, I mean. I’d like _us_ to be a thing. If you do.”

Clarke beams, her face bright and open. “Yeah?”

Bellamy nods, leaning back in to kiss her again. “Yeah.”

*

Bellamy wakes up bright and early at 5, even though he’s on spring break, stops by the coffee shop around the corner to pick up a double Americano, and meets Clarke at the park. She’s wearing a gray hoodie zipped up over her yellow shirt, the sleeves pulled down low over her fingers, and she’s scowling down at her phone, as though it has personally wronged her. It reminds Bellamy of the first time he saw her, and he can’t help but smile, fond.

He hands Clarke her coffee cup and takes her free hand in his. They start walking without saying a word, letting routine guide them.

After a few minutes, Clarke lets out a heavy sigh and leans her head against Bellamy’s arm. “I hate 5:30 walks,” she grumbles.

Bellamy squeezes her hand. “But you love me,” he reminds her. It’s only been a few months, but he’s so sure. They’re going to be walking together for a very long time.

The corners of Clarke’s mouth twitch up into a small smile. “Yeah. I do.”

 

 


End file.
